by Chloe Cox
She slid her thigh over his lap to straddle him as she drank. Holt’s eyes heated, and his hands skimmed up her legs, then bracketed her hip. “It just tastes better than anything else I’ve had.”
“I know all the good spots to get food around here,” he said. “That comes from a little shop around the corner. They roast their beans fresh every day, and I figured you might like to drink this enough that you wouldn’t also pour it down your panties.”
Simone’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t do that on purpose!”
But then she realized he was laughing, and his body shook underneath hers, and the tone of the conversation was quickly turning from one of teasing into something much sexier.
“You’re picking on me,” she said, setting her cup down. “Aren’t you?”
“Use your safe word to stop me,” Holt suggested.
“Oh please. You use your safe word.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Oh no, you poor thing, that means there’s no way for you to escape…the syrup!” Simone grabbed the gravy boat filled sacrilegiously with maple syrup, and she poured a line of it onto his chest.
Holt arched an eyebrow. “Is that how that’s going to go?”
“Yep,” she said.
And then she licked the syrup off of him, running her tongue between the ridges of his muscle. Holt’s satisfied groan rolled through his chest for only an instant before he flipped her onto her back.
“That’s my job,” he said.
Their kiss tasted sticky, like maple syrup, and she almost forgot what a vulnerable position she was in before he lifted the shirt she’d slept in to pour syrup directly onto her breasts. The syrup had been warmed so that it would flow easily. It was like a tongue drawing a line between her nipples.
“Oh wow,” Simone gasped.
“Now, I didn’t make this to be wasted and ignored while we fuck,” Holt said. He sat back. Now he was the one straddling her legs, holding her down. He grabbed a plate of pancakes, cut it, and pushed the fork toward her mouth. “Eat.”
“You really made this?” she asked.
“I gave you an order,” he said. “Eat.”
Her lips closed around the fork.
If Holt had made these pancakes, then he had a possible second career as diner chef waiting for him. They were fluffy and buttery and melted on her tongue.
Whatever sound came out of her at the taste wasn’t human.
“You’ve never made that noise while I’ve been inside you,” Holt said, “but I’ll take it as a compliment anyway.”
“Okay, let me up so I can feed myself.” By which Simone meant “so I can stuff all this food into my face-hole ASAP.” If his pancakes were that good, she wanted a shot at the grits before they lost temperature.
But he didn’t let her get up. He stayed sitting on her, and he fed Simone one bite at a time, controlling the pace, choosing what she’d eat, and staring at her all the while with those burning eyes of his.
It was a lot like when he edged her toward orgasm without letting her go over, but the deliciousness of the food was kinda worse.
She didn’t even realize that they were running low on breakfast until he stopped feeding her. Holt was staring. Motionless.
“What?” she asked.
“You keep making those sounds,” he said. “And I’ve had about as much as I can take.”
She hadn’t realized she’d been moaning while eating, too. And now Holt was hard. His cock tented the sweatpants.
Simone squealed as he tore away the comforter and pinned her naked body to the bed beneath his. He didn’t even undress before moving between Simone’s legs, shoving down the waistband of his pants so that he could push himself into her, bowing her against the bed with the force of it. He clenched his fingers in her hair and held tightly as he thrust deeply, hitting every spot just right, and she cried out into his mouth when she orgasmed.
She was still shuddering against him, bewildered and happy, when she heard the ping of a text message.
Simone froze.
Holt reached for his phone. It was him, not her. His phone. Not hers.
“Damn,” he said, frowning.
“Work?” she said, for once actually grateful that a man was looking at his phone instead of at her. She wouldn’t have an answer if he asked her what was wrong. And she knew Holt—he wouldn’t leave it on if there wasn’t something important.
“Yeah,” he said. “Something came up with a case. I gotta go in.”
“That’s too bad,” she said, and rolled over so she could rest her head on his arm. Her heart rate was coming back to normal, and she kept reminding herself that the sound hadn’t been for her. “I was planning on thanking you for last night all day long.”
Holt kissed the top of her head, then grinned at her as he slid off the bed and into some jeans.
“You’re not off the hook, little sub,” he said. “I’ve got plans for you.”
“I hope so,” she said, and ogled him one last time as he pulled a shirt over his rippling torso.
“My eyes are up here, sweetheart.”
Simone giggled at having been caught, and looked up.
And the look in Holt’s eyes made her breath catch in her throat.
He held her like that, for a beat, maybe two. Then he walked back to the bed, put his hand flat on her chest, and pushed her until he held her down one more time.
“I love you,” he said, and kissed her.
Simone let all her defenses, all her worries, fall away, and she bathed herself in the feeling of that kiss. It washed over her, leaving her warm, and happy, and wet. Which was unfortunate, because he really was leaving.
“I love you, too,” she said. Somehow it didn’t seem like enough.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Holt said from the door. “I want you naked and spread when I get back.”
And he left.
Simone squealed again, and flung herself back on the bed, her body already heated and squirming for his touch. What that man did to her could not be explained by science. She still tingled, all over, and the joy in her heart was a physical thing, a lightness that wanted to burst through and…
Ping.
At first, she didn’t move. Didn’t even stop smiling. She just…froze.
And then another notification pinged. It was a second text message sent in quick succession. And it was soon followed by a third. Simone had set ringtones for everyone. If it was the default sound, then it meant that she was getting a message from an unknown number.
She reached over to grab her phone.
“Heard you charmed the newspaper man into giving you another chance. Real classy. I could tell everyone exactly how classy you are.”
It was broken up into three text messages, like Crennel had been too angry to think through his thoughts before sending them to her.
The room turned cold. She could feel her happiness fading, could feel it blowing away. For a second, she felt that powerless panic that she’d come to know so well. And then she remembered what Holt had said.
He’d told her to stand up for herself. He’d been right.
Her fingers flew across the phone. “I don’t respond to threats.” That was it. A quick shutdown, and hopefully that would be final.
But before she could set her phone back down, it pinged again with several more texts. Crennel had been sitting on his phone waiting for her. And he’d been ready for her to brush him off.
He’d sent her a series of screen shots that had clearly been taken off of a video.
The pictures showed Simone.
In Crennel’s dungeon.
She sat up slowly, feeling sicker than ever before, and that was saying a lot. She looked through the photos twice, three times, four times, before finally stopping on the last of them. It showed her face most clearly of all of them.
She wished…she didn’t know what she wished. Simone was used to seeing herself look wasted. She was used to the indignity of that. But this was s
omething else. She hadn’t been wasted anymore, not by the time she’d gotten there. It had been something worse.
It was just pure self-hatred. It was the saddest, ugliest thing she’d ever seen. And it was evidence of a part of her that she wished didn’t exist.
The same part she’d never shown to the man she loved. The part she knew no one, least of all her, could ever love.
Her fingers shook as she texted one line.
“What do you want?”
Simone watched the undulating gray dots as Crennel typed out his response, as time stretched into an infinite limbo, as the bile rose up in her throat. Whatever it would be, it would be too much.
It was one line.
“Tell your boyfriend to leave me alone.”
20
Holt was already halfway to his destination when he got the text from Simone.
“So it turns out I have to work too. Cave refuses to correct or do a new story, and I have to come up with something else STAT. See you soon.”
Holt frowned, and leaned on the gas as the light above him changed. Something about that text set off his Dom sense. Simone was a planner by nature. “See you soon” was the kind of ambiguity that drove her crazy.
He looked over as his phone pinged again.
“I love you.”
Now his Dom sense was definitely tingling.
So something was up with his sub. He’d deal with that. But first, Holt had a dummy to deal with.
He turned onto the now familiar street and double-parked his car. He was here on official business, and now he definitely wasn’t in the mood to deal with any crap. This had gotten him out of bed with his woman. He was going to make sure it was worth it.
Holt looked down at his phone and clicked over to his text conversation with Alphonse, reviewing the text he’d gotten that morning from the CI. Yeah, he bet Cave Johnson still refused to do a new story. The reason why was staring him right in the face.
First, there was the picture of Cave that Holt had texted to Alphonse the day before, and the question underneath it.
Then, there was Al’s response: “Yeah, that dude’s a member at Sinsations. Or was.”
That about sealed it.
Holt pushed through the door of the coffee shop, walked behind the counter where a surprised barista was cleaning the espresso machine, and put his hand out.
“Key,” he said. “Upstairs. Now.”
Wordlessly, the barista reached under the counter and grabbed a key tied to a wooden block. Holt grabbed it, and used it to let himself into the side entrance to the flight of stairs that would bring him to Cave Johnson’s apartment. Then he turned and tossed it back to the wide-eyed barista.
He hadn’t even needed to show his badge. Guess his mood was obvious.
Holt was quiet but quick on the stairs. Cave Johnson wasn’t a physical threat. But he was a threat. He should know what it felt like to be treated like one.
When Holt pounded on the door, it sounded like the hand of god knocking.
“Law enforcement!” he bellowed. “Open up!”
There was a pause. Then the sound of a man scurrying around a tiny apartment.
“Coming!” came the reply.
Holt stepped back, and eyed the door.
Then he kicked it in with one powerful blow, ripping the lock out of the wooden frame, sending the door swinging like an empty frame.
“Jesus!” screamed Cave.
Holt had kicked in the door because it had sounded like Cave was getting rid of evidence. He was a member of a club where drugs were dealt—not just allowed, but supplied—and his response to the arrival of law enforcement had been suspicious.
But Cave wasn’t running around trying to dump stuff down the toilet or the garbage disposal. He was standing the middle of a messy apartment with a pile of dirty laundry in his arms.
Holt stepped in, shaking his head. The place was a damn sty. There were old pizza boxes and takeout containers and dirty dishes everywhere.
“You never learned how to live on your own without a woman?” Holt said. “Like a grown man?”
Cave went red in the face. Holt had hit a nerve.
Good.
“I don’t see how that’s any business of yours,” Cave said. “And you have no right to bust down my door.”
Cave kept a death grip on his dirty whites, but his eyes narrowed as he studied Holt.
“Wait a minute. You’re from Club Volare. Who do you—”
“Incorrect,” Holt said, slamming the free-swinging door behind him. “I am a member at Club Volare. But I also have a badge. And a tip that there might be cocaine at this location.”
“Cocaine?” Cave said, and dropped the clothes. He opened his arms wide, as if to indicate everything around him. “Does it look like I can afford a coke habit?”
“Not really,” Holt said. He picked up a letter from a pile of unopened mail on the rickety table. Bills. “Who did you think I was when I told you to open up?”
“None of your business,” Cave said.
Holt turned his attention from the pile of unopened mail and slowly, viciously, pinned Cave with a look. He was done playing.
“Incorrect again,” Holt said. “And I will make it my business to follow up on any and everything you have going on in your miserable little life, including whatever trouble you were expecting with the law, if I don’t get what I came here for today. Understood?”
Cave swallowed. He nodded.
“Good,” Holt went on. “You will answer my questions. Nod again if you understand.”
Cave nodded. He hadn’t moved from where he stood, his feet still covered in laundry.
“You are, or you have been, a member at Sinsations, and you hid this information from the people you interacted with at Club Volare, correct?”
Again, Cave nodded.
“Speak up,” Holt ordered.
“Yes,” Cave said softly. “I was a member there.”
“But no longer?”
“No.”
Holt studied the smaller man. He wasn’t lying. But he wasn’t telling the whole truth, either.
“You did this at the instruction of Alan Crennel?” Holt said.
“Yes.”
Holt kept his face impassive, unreadable. But holy hell did he want to destroy something. This little shit had set Simone up. He’d never had any intention of giving the club good press. He’d just used that as a pretext to badger Simone about the worst day of her life, to make her relive it. He’d hurt Simone on purpose. And somehow Holt could tell it was worse than he even knew. If he knew the whole story…
“Why?” he demanded.
Cave didn’t say anything, but his eyes did the talking. They looked down, but didn’t stay still. He looked around furtively, as if a gaze could scurry, looking for shelter, somewhere Holt couldn’t see him.
“Tell me why, Cave,” Holt growled.
And that’s when he saw real fear on Cave’s face.
He didn’t need to be a Dom to spot it. It was that loud, screaming across Cave’s expression while the man stood rooted to the floor.
“I can’t,” Cave said, and it came out strangled.
“Why not?” Holt snarled. He didn’t like himself for it, but this was the man who’d tried to hurt Simone.
“Please,” Cave said. “I don’t know why Crennel cares about Simone Delavigne or your club. I just did what I was told.”
“Not good enough,” Holt said. “Why’d you do what he asked?”
Cave closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was pleading. “He didn’t ask. Please don’t make me tell you any more. You don’t know him. He’s ruthless. And I’ll lose everything if he finds out I’m talking to you about it. Everything.”
Holt looked around the apartment one last time. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought Cave had already lost almost everything.
But he’d seen people who were afraid to talk to law enforcement before. He’d seen people who were afraid to tes
tify, to be a witness. Cave was one of them.
And he remembered what Simone had said.
“Promise me you won’t make any of those subs testify.”
Holt closed his eyes for a moment, and then let the tension go out of his body. He’d promised his sub. And she was right. Whatever Crennel had on Cave, it was something that scared the submissive. And Holt had come in hot, and now Cave wouldn’t talk to him, not until things cooled down.
He opened his eyes, and looked at Cave.
“You know how to fix this?” he said, hooking his thumb at the door he’d busted.
“Yeah, actually,” Cave said. “My dad was good with his hands.”
So the man wasn’t entirely useless.
Holt peeled some bills out of his billfold and dropped them on the table.
“For the new lock,” he said. He looked at the frame, and peeled off another bill. “And the wood.”
“Do cops usually—”
“I’m not done with you,” Holt said, cutting him off. “I’m going to come back here, and I’m going to have questions, and you’re going to answer them. And I’m going to take Crennel down. That’s how it’s going to work. I’m one of the good guys, Cave. Don’t fuck up, and you don’t have to be scared of me. Understood?”
Cave stepped out of his laundry pile, and picked up the money. He seemed to be calming down.
“Understood,” he said.
Holt left the man to his laundry and his broken door, and walked out to his car, where a light rain was falling. He could feel his investigator mind filing away all of those details for later recollection, when he’d connect the dots, draw a picture. The vague idea of a plan he’d had to deal with Crennel was starting to fill in. All that in due time.
But Cave had done one thing today. He’d reminded Holt of the promise he’d made to his sub. His sub who was freaking out about something already. Who would, if history were any judge, try to push him away when she needed to let him in.
He got in the car, and reached for his phone.
“Tomorrow,” he texted Simone. “Oyster festival. I’ll pick you up.”
He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
Holt nodded at the doorman in Simone’s fancy condo building and side stepped the elevator, preferring to take the stairs, like he usually did.